1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a code reader which reads data recorded as an optically readable code on a card type recording medium, and such card type recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 1, when a handy code reader 104 is manually moved on a recording medium 102 in which data is recorded as an optically readable code 100 to read the code 100, instability of a velocity or incorrectness of a reading position is caused because of manual movement, and it is necessary to solve this problem.
Therefore, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,866,895, a system has been proposed in which digital data is divided by block unit having predetermined information amounts and recorded in a recording medium to reproduce the data. In the above-described system, each block data divided in an appropriate size is read together with an address, and the block data is combined based on the address to reproduce the information. In a constitution in which the data is divided and recorded/reproduced for each block having an appropriate size in this manner, a moving velocity is not constant, or the reading position is also moved by incorrect manual operation. Even in this case, the system is very superior in that the data can be securely read.
An effect of dividing and recording/reproducing the data for each block is high, but in this code reader 104, as shown in FIG. 2, with the movement, an image pick-up region 106 meanders with respect to the code. Therefore, when the region largely meanders, images of all blocks 108 are not correctly picked up, the data is sometimes missing, and attentions need to be paid to this case. In other words, an allowable meandering amount is a large factor that influences user's operability, and needs to be sufficiently considered in designing. Then, as shown in FIG. 3, when a longitudinal direction W of the image pick-up region 106 is matched with a meandering direction in the code reader 104 in which a size of the image pick-up region 106 on the medium is W×H (W>H), a larger allowable meandering amount (W−B) is secured.
Moreover, as a countermeasure against the meandering, constitutions such as a card type medium and code reader described in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 9-319846 are usable. As shown in FIG. 4, this is superior in that the code 100 is recorded along one side of a card type recording medium 110 on the medium, this medium is allowed to abut on a guide groove (=card guide 116) disposed in a housing 114 of a code reader 112, and moved along the groove, and accordingly the code 100 can be read without meandering the medium.